The Return of Me

I gave up a lot of things during pregnancy. Alcohol, sushi, doing backbends during yoga, surfing, running after 6 months, and towards the end of my pregnancy I gave up wearing anything that wasn’t stretchy.

Since Star was born I’ve been enjoying more and more of the things that I used to do before pregnancy. Some of these are trivial, like being able to sleep on my back again, and having a sip of champagne or a cold chicken sandwich. Others are things that I feel make me “me” and which I hold very sacred, like the sound of my runners pounding the running track again. On the weekend, we took Star, now 2 months, to the beach for the first time. As I heard the sound of the pounding surf and caught my first glimpse of that wide expanse of beach and the foaming sea, I felt something well up deep inside of me. “I remember this!” it seemed to say. “This is part of me. I’m coming back”. The question is, Am I still the same person? And am I just the sum of my parts? And underlying that are the questions of what identity is, and who am I really?

The first few weeks of parenthood have the ability to completely wipe out your sense of who you used to be – you know, the independent, capable, high-achieving person who contributed to society and had a full night’s sleep every night. After that you have to gather up what’s left of the chaos and start to piece yourself together again. I know I will never be the same person again. Physically I now have a Caesarian section scar, my boobs are huge and will eventually become floppy when I wean my baby, and I am not sure if my jelly belly will ever completely go away. But when I look at myself in the mirror that’s when I see the change the most – in my eyes I see a different person – some nights a desperate exhausted mother, other times confident, mature and knowing.

I don’t expect to return to the old “me” as I used to be. I know I am now responsible for a tiny human being as they grow and develop, and that responsibility will never cease. For the rest of my life I will consider someone else’s needs as well as my own. But I do wish to restore those parts of me that I felt made the most difference. Physical fitness and challenge, time-out while running, easing into a yoga pose, paddling madly to catch a wave. It will take a bit more planning to be able to incorporate these into my life as a mother, but if I don’t make the effort I fear that large and vital parts of me will disappear and I will be left an empty shell. And an empty shell cannot make for a good mother.

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About Dr Carolyn Ee

Carolyn is a Sydney-based GP and acupuncturist/Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner who has devoted her career to finding the evidence for health and happiness. She was the first practising medical doctor in Australia to also qualify as a Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner. She is a post-doctoral researcher at the National Institute of Complementary Medicine and the Chair of the Integrative Medicine Working Group at the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. Her previous work on acupuncture for menopause was published in a high-impact internal medicine journal. She has appeared on radio and on national television. Carolyn continues to work as a clinician alongside her research work, and is on a journey to find the best way to combine a career and family. She moved in early 2016 from Melbourne to the Northern Beaches of Sydney with her husband and two young children, and enjoys running, high-intensity-interval training, goal-setting, and the occasional eating of cupcakes.